page_title: Royal Netherlands Army
section_title: French period (1795–1814)
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Netherlands Army / History / French period (1795–1814)
caption_attribution_description: Image of the prince of Orange (later king William II of the Netherlands) at the Battle of Quatre-Bras. The prince is on a horse in the center of the picture. Fresh troops are marching in on the left. The battle is in full swing on the right. This canvas was a sketch for a larger work in the Soestdijk Palace.
context_page_description: The Royal Netherlands Army is the land forces element of the military of the Netherlands.
  Though the Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, its origins date back to 1572, when the Staatse Leger was raised – making the Dutch standing army one of the oldest in the world. It fought in the Napoleonic Wars, World War II, the Indonesian War of Independence, and the Korean War and served with NATO on the Cold War frontiers in West-Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s.
  Since 1990, the army has been sent into the Iraqi War and into the War in Afghanistan, as well as deployed in several United Nations' peacekeeping missions.
  The tasks of the Royal Netherlands Army are laid out in the Constitution of the Netherlands: defend the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and of its allies, protect and advance the international legal order and to support the government in law enforcement, disaster relief and humanitarian aid, both nationally and internationally. The supreme authority over the armed forces of the Netherlands is exercised by the government; there is thus no constitutional supreme commander. However, army personnel does swear allegiance to the Dutch monarch.
context_section_description: With the French conquest of the Netherlands, the Staatse Leger was replaced by the army of the Batavian Republic in 1795, which in turn was replaced by the army of the Kingdom of Holland in 1806.  This army fought beside the French, to repel the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799 and to wage several campaigns in Germany, Austria, and Spain between 1800 and 1810; particularly notable were the engagements of the Horse Artillery (Korps Rijdende Artillerie) at the Battle of Friedland in 1807, the capture of the city of Stralsund in 1807 and 1809, and the participation of the Dutch brigade in the Peninsular War between 1808 and 1810.  The independent army was disbanded in 1810, when Napoleon decided to integrate the Netherlands into France ("La Hollande est reunie à l'Empire"):  Dutch military units became part of the Grande Armée (the present-day French 126th Infantry Regiment has Dutch origins).  Dutch military elements participated in the disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, and the actions of the Pontonniers company under Captain Benthien at the Berezina River (Battle of Berezina) are especially noteworthy.  New research points out that, contrary to long-held belief, around half of the Dutch contingent of the Grande Armée survived the Russian Campaign.
caption: William II of the Netherlands at the Battle of Quatre Bras.
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